Turn Your Instagram into a Recognisable Brand

SOCIAL Turn Your Instagram into a Recognisable Brand

It’s not enough to just be on Instagram anymore. Clients are making tangible decisions about whether they book a service based on what that businesses Instagram looks like...

S

o how do you stand out and ensure what a potential client sees on Instagram will make them want to book into your salon?

Using your Instagram to promote your salon as a recognisable brand is proving to be a powerful strategy in attracting ideal clients. It is salons who have established a strong brand identity both in the physical and digital world and established harmony between the two who are leading the way.

Ashleigh Reinboth, Haircare’s Social Media Marketing Manager takes you through 4 steps to help build a compelling visual identity on Instagram.

1

Define Your Identity

The first step in branding your social is to develop a visual identity which you consistently use on your Instagram. This creates a uniform aesthetic and if you are diligent in sticking to it, your followers start to remember your style, keeping your salon front of mind to them.

2

Content Pillars

It’s important to define content pillars to give boundaries on what should be posted on social and what shouldn’t. These pillars can be carved out from looking at what is performing for your account. You want to focus content on the pillars or themes that receive high engagement, as highly engaging content pillars are essential to be seen in the news feed. It’s important to remember to never use Instagram as a broadcasting channel, you we must always cross check that your posts are doing one of the below things:

• This post is helping my

followers; they are learning something which is valuable and useful to them.

• This post is inspiring my

followers; this post is a source of beauty inspiration that they an reference themselves.

• This post is connecting me

with my followers, it is strengthening our online relationship by demonstrating human connection.

Colours

Start by choosing 2-4 brand colours for your Instagram which represent your salon vibe. Your inspiration for selecting these colours should feature colours in your physical salon space and other branded materials such as your website or business cards. Draw your colour inspiration from the textures and styling you have in your salon. For example, if you have blush pink furniture, make one of your primary colours blush pink on social. Another example would be if you have lots of plants in your salon, ensure you have green featuring in your feed this helps to keep your brand presence consistent in all places. Your chosen brand colours should feature in majority of your posts (even if just subtly in the background) so they clearly stand out in your feed.

Font & Graphics

Choose one font to represent your brand on social and only use this font when posting anything that has text on it. Modern and popular styles are fonts or graphics which look more freestyle and have handwritten tendencies. Consistency in the same legible font and graphics include your highlighted stories reel as well as promotional and communication focussed messages.

Rose Quartz Gardenia Sand Dollar Forest Biome

Hair

Showcase your portfolio of hair work. High quality images or videos shot in natural light.

Examples:

• Videos of final hair. • Images of finished hair.

Frequency: 60% of posts

Education

Videos which demonstrate how you achieved that style or colour.

Examples:

Before and after transformations, colouring technique, processing, curling technique, cutting hair videos.

Frequency: 20% of posts.

Product

Images and videos of the products you use in salon and retail. Ensure they are shot in a lifestyle setting, hi-res in natural light.

Examples:

A “shelfie” of product, a flat lay of product, a video of product being applied, an image of a product being held up next to styled hair.

Frequency: 10% of posts.

Who You Are

Content that relays your brand identity and personality.

Examples:

A celebration post about a work achievement, a special milestone from your business, a staff group video, a post celebrating a loyal client or feedback from a client.

Frequency: 10% of posts.

3

Curating Your Feed

Once you have defined what you post and how that looks visually, it is important to map out and plan how 6-9 posts look together as a grid feed. This is a touch point when a new person makes decisions on your branding and style and whether they like it or not. When they tap on your profile, they review your feed holistically as a grid and cast their judgement on it.

A great way to approach this is to think about when you make a collage in a scrapbook or a mood board for a photoshoot, the images need to collectively tell a story and portray an aesthetic. So feed synergy is important and by having guidelines on content pillars, colours and font, this will help ensure consistency can be maintained. To make your feed look more balanced, non-cluttered and flow, here are my tips for spacing out your posts:

• Never post similar looking posts right next to each other, these should be separated. These can include: include similar hair colour, styling, head positioning. Instead of posting next to each other break them up with a contrasting post in between. • Create negative space – Ensure that your posts have light, negative space and don’t have busy backdrops. This can help hair really stand out and grab people’s attention. Portrait mode can help declutter backdrops.

• If you decide to post something distinctively different to your other posts, to ensure it doesn’t jar your feed and stick out like an eyesore, you should try to weave in similar coloured post 7 posts later.

4

Consistency with your online experiences & real-life experience

It’s all well and good to have great looking social media but if the online experience isn’t backed up in real life…Then it’s a little pointless. Have you ever been sucked in by the smoke and mirrors of a great insta feed from a café to go there and feel like the real-life experience was nothing like what they promoted? It’s crucial that our attention to detail on the ‘gram is followed through to the salon floor.

Ensuring that your salon space is styled and even constructed with social sharing in mind is a great starting point. Natural light, airy open spaces are crucial to nailing this. Have elements in your salon that will encourage clients to share their experiences on social. This could be mirror decals, modern interior styling, or photo-worthy refreshments. Creating a space that clients want to show off to their friends also means you have created a follow-worthy culture.

5

Time & Attention to Detail

My last tip is nice and simple but still very important. Give yourself the time for attention to detail. This is very much needed to implement the above strategies. All the ideas I’ve shared do not work unless you allocate the time to properly do them. Setting up content days and collaborations gives you creative freedom and allows you to keep the quality of your content to a high standard. It’s crucial to stay organised and plan content days as well as allocate time to schedule and map out content. Below are some great resources which will help you stay organized and time efficient. Unfold to help brand your Instagram stories

Product / Lifestyle/ Quote/ Who We Are

Brunette

Blonde Hair

Platinum Blonde Hair

Education Video

Balayage Hair

Honey Blonde Hair

Fashion Coloured Hair

Product / Lifestyle/ Quote

Apps & Tools to Help You

Plannery or Sked Social are apps that let you map out your content in a grid and schedule your posts

Canva

The Haircare Social Media Guide available to download on our website

Follow @haircareaust & @haircarenz for Instagram tips and tricks

Image Credits:

@theyoungblondesalon @theblowaustralia @boho.blonde.perth @mikkiauldhair